October is big-time fiesta in Zaragoza. "Big-time" means no school, no work, and no sleep. If you can imagine the 4th of July, and then imagine that the 4th of July lasts for 10 days, you have a general picture of "Pilar" in this city. The festivities began on October 9, and ended promptly (sort-of) at midnight on October 19th. The center of the party is the 12th of October, a national holiday in Spain for 2 reasons: It is el día de la hispanidad (Hispanic day?), and also the holy day for Our Lady of the Pillar. The pillar is a statue of the Virgin Mary on a small marble pillar, and it commemorates the apparition of Mary in Spain during her life, to speak with the Apostle St. James. "The pillar" stands at the center of the Basilica in Zaragoza, so the big holiday focuses all of it's energy on this city. The population more than doubles for the festival. The religious/traditional/cultural high point of the week is the Ofrenda de Flores, where people dressed in traditional Spanish dress (mostly from Aragón, but other regions are also represented) process from, of course, our street, to the Basilica to offer flowers to a statue of Mary on a huge scaffolding. Andee and Chaia were invited to participate, so they lined up with the other 300,000 people processing (no joke) and made their offering.
But that's only one event out of manymanymanymany events.
So what else happens?
So many things that I can't possibly put them all here. I'll try to sum up, hitting on the major events (I'll forget some, I'm sure).
- First off, there are fireworks every night in different parts of the city, at about 11:00. Also, there are concerts. SOOOOO many concerts in different parts of the city, some free and some not. On the nights of the 16-18th, the concerts were basically right outside our apartment, starting at 10:00.
- Also, there is an artisan's expo for the entire festival. It fills the park near our street with food, toys, and other crafts (ceramics, metalwork, woodwork, you name it). No junk, all pretty nice craftsmanship.
- Next to the artisan's expo is a tent, filling a street for the week. In it, there are free concerts all day and evening, and food and drink (not to mention childrens' activities throughout the day). In the tent you can get Ternasco, grilled lamb, day and night (ternasco is the regional meal of Aragón) along with your beer or wine at snack break (about 10:30 am) and at mealtimes, or with vermouth before mealtimes.
- There are parades sporadically occurring through the week, most of them on the major street adjoining our street. Sometimes they are organized, purposeful processions, and sometimes just 30,000 rowdy, drinking, singing members of various peñas (clubs) showing off their singing skills.
- In the city parks there are nonstop activities for kids and their parents.
- In the larger, divided streets with pedestrian walks in the middle, there are tents and kiosks selling everything imaginable. Prices range from expensive to REALLY expensive.
- There are contests of every kind (running, rowing, speed skating, you name it).
- There are processions of gigantes y cabezudos, big puppet characters of 2 kinds: The gigantes are 15 foot tall statues of famous and not-so-famous characters held on the shoulders of a REALLY srong person, and the cabezudos are regular-sized people with enormous heads, also of famous and not-so-famous characters. The gigantes are fascinating; they are huge, and fun, but also possess a strange nobility. They make you feel like a little kid. The cabezudos, on the other hand, are truly bizarre. They carry whips, which they use on unsuspecting children as they are chased down the street. Then the scary, big-head puppets give the kids candy. No joke, this is the stuff that nightmares are made of.
- There are bullfights, bull expositions, and vaquillas, which are pretty big cows (but not bulls) that are let, one at a time, into the bullring where a gang of hormonally imbalanced teenage boys attempt to got chased by the cows. Occasionally a teenager gets hurt doing this, which really gets the crowd going. The notable thing about the vaquillas is that it takes place at 8:00 in the morning. Silly me, thought:"Wow, I'm impressed that people get up so early to watch and participate!"
These teenagers (and most everyone watching) have been awake all night, and this is just the last stop before a mid-morning nap. After the nap, the whole party starts again.
- There are street vendors, artists, henna tattoo guys, pirated DVD sellers, comedians, acrobats, and of course at least 20 Andean music bands playing the theme from Titanic over and over from noon until 2 AM. All week. Right outside our apartment.
